Customers look over the offerings from Hiba and Laila Saab’s food trailer, Homemade Freshly Mediterranean
It’s easy to cook meals like mom used to make when mom is cooking right alongside you.
Just ask Hiba Saab, co-owner of the new food trailer, Homemade Freshly Mediterranean.
A little more than a month ago, after a year of delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Saab opened her business, specializing in Lebanese cuisine, with her mother, Laila Saab.
The two set up daily on the northwest corner of South Pantano Road and East 22nd Street, amid the remnants of an old gas station where the popular local chain Serial Grillers got its start.
Saab, 39, said her mom has been teaching her the the proper methods of making Lebanese food since she was a child living in Beirut.
“I used to interfere with her cooking, but I got more serious about it when I was 11 or 12 years old,” Saab said. “I got good at it eventually. She showed me the basics.”
Hiba Saab, left, and her mother, Laila, work in close quarters filling orders as the owners of Homemade Freshly Mediterranean.
Those years of lessons are reflected in the expansive menu that Homemade Freshly posts outside of its trailer during its open hours every Tuesday through Saturday.
Offerings include falafel, dolma and sweet baklava, a kofta plate, a grilled chicken tawook wrap and both beef and chicken shawarma dishes.
Saab said shawarma, slices of thin meat that are roasted on a vertical rotisserie, was her favorite food growing up.
